'The Mitfords Made the Queen Sound Like Eliza Doolittle' — Meet the Original Valley Girls (Exclusive)
People | Mimi Pond | September 14, 2025
Mimi Pond writes for People!
"My name is Mimi Pond. If you’re of a certain age and gender, you might remember me as the woman who wrote The Valley Girls’ Guide to Life a humor book I wrote and illustrated in 1982. It happened like this: I left a waitressing career in Oakland, Calif. and moved to New York City in January of 1982 to become a full-time cartoonist.
After entertaining a book editor with my imitations of surfer dudes I’d gone to high school with (later immortalized by Sean Penn in Fast Times at Ridgemont High) this editor asked me if I could do a humor book about Valley Girls. I had to ask him what a Valley Girl was. He told me that musician Frank Zappa and his 14-year-old daughter Moon Unit Zappa had recorded a novelty hit song called “Valley Girl,” where Moon Unit imitated a bunch of girls she went to school with in the San Fernando Valley, a suburb of Los Angeles.
One listen to the song confirmed it — the same southern California accent I’d grown up with was in full bloom. I thought, “this will be easy.” And do you know what? It was.
I used my advance to fly to Los Angeles, where I spent time at the Sherman Oaks Galleria Mall and the beach in Santa Monica, talking to teen and preteen girls. I found them sweet and engaging and thrilled to have their trendy vocabulary in the news. I got the whole thing done in about six weeks. Dell Books published it as a 64-page paperback with a cover the exact shade of pink of a can of Tab diet soda.
I woke up to find myself with a 16-city tour and a spot on the New York Times Bestseller list. This former waitress was now being squired about in limos and being interviewed on The Today Show. While being interviewed for radio and television and the press, I encountered a lot of sexism and misogyny about women and girls — contempt for teenage girls in general, and especially for daring to assert their identity. I was protective of my Valley Girls! I could see nothing at all wrong with teenagers seeking an identity- one with its own slang — especially one that had flair and style. There was a backlash — even books about how to de-program your Valley Girl. I can understand trying to get your child not to use upspeak, but essentially the Valley Girl accent already existed as a Southern California accent, and the trend resonated nationwide. Bigtime. Readers, I paid off my student loan.
For years, I tried to convince people that the Valley Girl accent was essentially just a California accent. No one wanted to hear that. Vindication came at last with the Saturday Night Live sketch series, “The Californians.”
Fast forward to 2025 — I’ve just spent six years creating a graphic biography of Britain’s aristocratic Mitford Sisters, born between 1904 and 1920. The Mitford sisters, as debutantes, were expected to quietly marry into their class and fade into the woodwork. Instead, they became famous because of their political affiliations. Unity successfully stalked and became close friends with Adolf Hitler himself. Diana married British Union of Fascists leader Oswald Mosley. She and Mosley became the most hated couple in Britain. Sadly, because of these two, all the sisters were tarred with the same brush, which is most unfair.
Jessica Mitford, contrarily, became a Communist, ran away with her cousin to cover the Spanish Civil War, wound up a war widow in the U.S. and remarried an American lawyer. They became active in civil rights and union rights activism in Oakland, Calif. In 1963 she published a bestselling expose of the American funeral industry called The American Way of Death, which began her new career as a muckraking journalist.
Nancy Mitford, an outspoken Socialist, wrote bestselling biographies and comic novels, most famously The Pursuit of Love, which has never been out of print.
Deborah Mitford became the Duchess of Devonshire. Faced with restoring Chatsworth House, the massive, historic country estate she’d married into, she did more than that. She opened it to the public and used her entrepreneurial genius to turn it into a very profitable operation.
Even Pamela, the sister who chose to live quietly in the countryside, was only recently revealed to be a late-in-life lesbian, as well as a renowned poultry expert.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer , from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
What does all of this have to do with Valley Girls? Well, Jessica and Unity, as teenagers, created not one, but two original languages — Honnish and Bouldedidge. Like Valley Girls, the Mitford sisters — well, except for Unity and Diana — were misunderstood and were the victims of misogyny.
Beyond that, people found the Mitfords’ very, very aristocratic accent extremely annoying. You know how they say Queen Elizabeth’s speech was the most extreme example of an aristocratic accent? Well, the Mitfords made the Queen sound like Eliza Doolittle. Nancy Mitford, the eldest sister, was a volunteer fire watcher during the blitz. For a time she was asked to lecture new volunteers … until she was asked not to. She asked why. They said, “Well, when they hear you speak, they want to put YOU on the fire.”
There has long been a quiet but steady mania for anything Mitford-related. Dozens of books, by and about them, have been published. The sisters, through their actions, managed to touch just about every aspect of the 20th century. There is even a new Britbox miniseries about them, called Outrageous. The most outrageous thing about this series is that it fails to capture how essentially funny and witty these sisters were.
Women are hungry to hear more about the lives of women and how they navigate the world — without being dismissed as crazy or eccentric. I think people of both sexes are curious to hear about family dynamics and how they play out over time. I may have written this book because I never had sisters, only brothers, and desperately wanted someone to take my side, at least once. The thing the Mitfords used to say to each other to coax sympathy for their arguments was, “Do admit!”
The girls who bought my book, The Valley Girls’ Guide to Life are now women in their 40s and 50s who survived Val speak (“gag me with a spoon!” ) lipgloss and unicorns. I like to think they will see the similarities. Do admit!"
After entertaining a book editor with my imitations of surfer dudes I’d gone to high school with (later immortalized by Sean Penn in Fast Times at Ridgemont High) this editor asked me if I could do a humor book about Valley Girls. I had to ask him what a Valley Girl was. He told me that musician Frank Zappa and his 14-year-old daughter Moon Unit Zappa had recorded a novelty hit song called “Valley Girl,” where Moon Unit imitated a bunch of girls she went to school with in the San Fernando Valley, a suburb of Los Angeles.
One listen to the song confirmed it — the same southern California accent I’d grown up with was in full bloom. I thought, “this will be easy.” And do you know what? It was.
I used my advance to fly to Los Angeles, where I spent time at the Sherman Oaks Galleria Mall and the beach in Santa Monica, talking to teen and preteen girls. I found them sweet and engaging and thrilled to have their trendy vocabulary in the news. I got the whole thing done in about six weeks. Dell Books published it as a 64-page paperback with a cover the exact shade of pink of a can of Tab diet soda.
I woke up to find myself with a 16-city tour and a spot on the New York Times Bestseller list. This former waitress was now being squired about in limos and being interviewed on The Today Show. While being interviewed for radio and television and the press, I encountered a lot of sexism and misogyny about women and girls — contempt for teenage girls in general, and especially for daring to assert their identity. I was protective of my Valley Girls! I could see nothing at all wrong with teenagers seeking an identity- one with its own slang — especially one that had flair and style. There was a backlash — even books about how to de-program your Valley Girl. I can understand trying to get your child not to use upspeak, but essentially the Valley Girl accent already existed as a Southern California accent, and the trend resonated nationwide. Bigtime. Readers, I paid off my student loan.
For years, I tried to convince people that the Valley Girl accent was essentially just a California accent. No one wanted to hear that. Vindication came at last with the Saturday Night Live sketch series, “The Californians.”
Fast forward to 2025 — I’ve just spent six years creating a graphic biography of Britain’s aristocratic Mitford Sisters, born between 1904 and 1920. The Mitford sisters, as debutantes, were expected to quietly marry into their class and fade into the woodwork. Instead, they became famous because of their political affiliations. Unity successfully stalked and became close friends with Adolf Hitler himself. Diana married British Union of Fascists leader Oswald Mosley. She and Mosley became the most hated couple in Britain. Sadly, because of these two, all the sisters were tarred with the same brush, which is most unfair.
Jessica Mitford, contrarily, became a Communist, ran away with her cousin to cover the Spanish Civil War, wound up a war widow in the U.S. and remarried an American lawyer. They became active in civil rights and union rights activism in Oakland, Calif. In 1963 she published a bestselling expose of the American funeral industry called The American Way of Death, which began her new career as a muckraking journalist.
Nancy Mitford, an outspoken Socialist, wrote bestselling biographies and comic novels, most famously The Pursuit of Love, which has never been out of print.
Deborah Mitford became the Duchess of Devonshire. Faced with restoring Chatsworth House, the massive, historic country estate she’d married into, she did more than that. She opened it to the public and used her entrepreneurial genius to turn it into a very profitable operation.
Even Pamela, the sister who chose to live quietly in the countryside, was only recently revealed to be a late-in-life lesbian, as well as a renowned poultry expert.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer , from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
What does all of this have to do with Valley Girls? Well, Jessica and Unity, as teenagers, created not one, but two original languages — Honnish and Bouldedidge. Like Valley Girls, the Mitford sisters — well, except for Unity and Diana — were misunderstood and were the victims of misogyny.
Beyond that, people found the Mitfords’ very, very aristocratic accent extremely annoying. You know how they say Queen Elizabeth’s speech was the most extreme example of an aristocratic accent? Well, the Mitfords made the Queen sound like Eliza Doolittle. Nancy Mitford, the eldest sister, was a volunteer fire watcher during the blitz. For a time she was asked to lecture new volunteers … until she was asked not to. She asked why. They said, “Well, when they hear you speak, they want to put YOU on the fire.”
There has long been a quiet but steady mania for anything Mitford-related. Dozens of books, by and about them, have been published. The sisters, through their actions, managed to touch just about every aspect of the 20th century. There is even a new Britbox miniseries about them, called Outrageous. The most outrageous thing about this series is that it fails to capture how essentially funny and witty these sisters were.
Women are hungry to hear more about the lives of women and how they navigate the world — without being dismissed as crazy or eccentric. I think people of both sexes are curious to hear about family dynamics and how they play out over time. I may have written this book because I never had sisters, only brothers, and desperately wanted someone to take my side, at least once. The thing the Mitfords used to say to each other to coax sympathy for their arguments was, “Do admit!”
The girls who bought my book, The Valley Girls’ Guide to Life are now women in their 40s and 50s who survived Val speak (“gag me with a spoon!” ) lipgloss and unicorns. I like to think they will see the similarities. Do admit!"